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Video Reminds Us of How Unsocial We Are — and All That We Miss While We're Glued to Our Phones

byKaitlin StanfordJul 17, 2014

"I have 422 friends, and yet I am lonely," the narrator begins, while staring into the camera before him. "I speak to all of them almost every day, and yet none of them know me."

Sad words, when you first hear them, until you realize that his story is not unlike most of our stories. He's talking, of course, about his hundreds of "friends" on social media, and the fact that despite all our pretty Instagram photos, happy Facebook statuses and clever tweets, this "social" world we not live in is not actually very social. With our cell phones, tablets and laptops practically glued to our hips at all time, we sure always like to feel connected — but are we?

Filmmaker Gary Turk is here to answer that question for us, with a big fat NO. And furthermore, he'd like to walk us through just how disconnected we really are — with a five-minute spoken word film accompanied by some thought-provoking poetry. "The world we call social is anything but," he rhymes, jarringly.

Turk questions, among other things, our obsession with Instagramming/tweeting/Facebooking every moment of our lives, almost to prove to the world that we are in fact having a life. But what for? "We're at our most happy with an experience we share," he says, "but is it the same if no one is there?"

And when it comes to our universal need to make life seem happier/funnier/awesomer than it really is (and rack up more Facebook "Likes" in the process), he hits the ball out of the park: "We edit and exaggerate, crave adulation; we pretend not to notice the social isolation."

He has some strong words for the modern parent, too, declaring, "It's not very likely you'll make 'World's Greatest Dad,' if you can't entertain a child without using an iPad."

Ooo, burn!

His stirring words about his own childhood — spent climbing trees and roaming parks, phone-free — are perhaps the most moving, but we won't spoil the rest for you. Watch Turk's clip below — and be sure to listen to every. Single. Word.